Canadian miner charged for anti-Jewish website

(JTA) — A Canadian miner was charged with a hate crime for anti-Jewish content on his website.

Arthur Topham, 65, of Quesnel in British Columbia, was charged Monday with promoting hatred against an identifiable group on his website, Radical Press. Topham has run the website, described by the local media as anti-Zionist, since 1998.

The charge comes six months after a criminal investigation into the website’s content was launched, according to the Toronto Sun.

Topham also was charged with a firearms-related offense. He is due back in a British Columbia court on Thursday.

Complaints against the website, which has referred to Jews as snakes and Zionists and posted the anti-Semitic hoax “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” date back to 2007.

“Judging from the wording of this indictment, it looks like it’s going to be a battle between the Christians and the Jews,” Topham wrote in a post on his website Monday.

Topham’s lawyer, Doug Christie, has defended Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel and James Keegstra. Christie told a British Columbia news radio station that Zionism is a political belief, "albeit connected effectively to Jewish groups, Jewish ideas," and that opposing a political belief is not a crime.